An open letter to Snowboarding Season:

An open letter to Snowboarding Season:

Hello Beautiful. You were gone so long, but are now so close. All summer long I thought about you; saving money so I can purchase various items so I can ride your tender powder faces and trees. I worked long days, and short days, but you were always on my mind; a beacon of hope that all this just might be worth it. You have been around for so long and every time you come around you allow my friends and I to create such great things. We all love you so much because you aren’t just something amazingly fun to do on snow; you are an outlet for anything going on in one’s life. Though snowboarding is amazingly fun when shared with friends, it is not a team sport and as such it is what you make of it anytime you go out there. There are no sidelines, no penalty boxes, no “how-to” manual sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere outlining what is and what isn’t; you are not so much a hobby as you are a blank canvas of endless creative possibilities. You will be here so soon, and that means a few things…That means early mornings, strong coffee, cold walks to the car/hitching spot, wet boots, line-ups, hangovers, falling down, long drives, longer hikes, chairlift rides, sitting in trucks with dogs, and so much more… and I crave the routines that come with your arrival. It is truly the little things that pay off in a day of snowboarding; no matter what kind of snowboarding you are doing that day from waist deep backcountry hikes to bluebird park laps. It’s in the extra couple seconds held on your perfectly stalled method, the shifty/poke during that back 180 that you think no one will notice (but you do), a simple hand drag during an epic powder turn, feeling the flow of the snow beneath your board on an all-time powder day, the never ending burn in your legs after a huge run and the immediate satisfaction that triumphs any previous fatigue; oh, my snowboard you are so much more than a piece of wood and some metal. You are an enabler; an enabler of creation and self-expression. Your attitude is nestled somewhere between sexy and bat-shit crazy and you make people do silly things all for the thrill and satisfaction of bringing something in your head to life (and making it look good). To look at snowy features and create a thought process that ends in you landing your objective is a series of moments loosely existing between fits of rage and euphoria. I like you because you are an output for raw creativity and a place where a mind can go to enter a state of complete focus and peace.

I love you snowboarding.

With that being said, hurry up and get here because you can only do so many living room butters and rock-board shred urban days before all your gear is wrecked and you look like an idiot come first snowfall.